Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Flexible and made to last.

Meet the Other Phone.
Flexible and made to last.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To not understand the point of an en suite?

98 replies

willisurvive3under2 · 12/09/2018 18:32

We're moving house and will do extensive renovations. We have the choice of 1 family bathroom and 1 en suite or 2 bathrooms.

Why would I want an en suite? I genuinely don't get it. At present when DH uses the only bathroom we have (which is fairly close to our bedroom), I get woken up without fail (either late night as I go to bed before him or early morning when he wakes for work and I'm still in bed).

Why would I make this even worse by practically having a toilet/shower by my head? What am I missing?

OP posts:
ThroughThickAndThin01 · 12/09/2018 18:49

Love our en suite. Invaluable in a house with several growing dc when they have their mates over all the time. Private luxury.

DragonMamma · 12/09/2018 18:49

Another one who wouldn’t be without an en suite. The kids sleep longer, for one, because we aren’t disturbing them when getting up in the morning and showering etc.

Plus I like having a space that’s just ours and I can leave my tampons and random bits out without having to tidy up when we have guests.

Funnyface1 · 12/09/2018 18:50

I like having our en suite because it's an extra toilet upstairs for when the family bathroom is busy. It's also brilliant for late at night when the kids are asleep. I can use the toilet or have a shower in the furthest corner of the house and not have to use the family bathroom where I might risk waking them.

Original poster
willisurvive3under2 · 12/09/2018 18:50

I'm sorry, I've been on MN for ages and I've never seen a thread on ensuites! I should have searched, I thought it was just me!

OP posts:
Scientistic · 12/09/2018 18:51

We had the same choice. Chose 2 bathrooms. Never regretted it. I thought the same as you, in our case the children would be wandering in to use our room.

OlennasWimple · 12/09/2018 18:51

I'd rather have a decent sized bedroom than a cramped bedroom with an en suite shoved into it, like so many new homes have

WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll · 12/09/2018 18:54

I feel the same, not a fan of en shites so would choose two bathrooms.

Was that deliberate or a typo?! Either way.... Grin Grin Grin

Singlenotsingle · 12/09/2018 18:56

I suppose we're just lucky. Our ensuite has shower cubicle and bath, so I can have a bath in peace.

WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll · 12/09/2018 18:59

No-one is allowed to do a number 2 in it

Channelling Kenneth Williams there.

Or the Denton family from the League of Gentleman. "This is the DOWNSTAIRS toilet, into which WE DO NOT PASS SOLIDS!!!" Grin

TinklyLittleLaugh · 12/09/2018 18:59

We had an ensuite in our last house, but because it had the best shower everyone in the family used to use it and it wasn't very private.

Now we have our own floor with our own, non ensuite bathroom. The kids have two bathrooms (one Jack and Jill, one family) on their floor and I have made sure they have decent showers to keep them out of ours.

Lazypuppy · 12/09/2018 18:59

An en suite is on my must have list for our next house

AdoreTheBeach · 12/09/2018 19:01

Having had au pairs and teen age daughters (and a teen son), very happy to have an en suite that is just used by DH and I, kept much cleaner and all my make up, nice body wash etc kept just for me. No clothes in the floor or loads of wet towels to contend with just to shower, use the loo etc. We also have a down stairs loo. During morning rush to get ready, that was the designated poo station. En suite was a must have when we moved (and bought this house).

If it were just us two, I might think differently but am so grateful for our en suite.

TittyGolightly · 12/09/2018 19:02

We have an ensuite (mine), family bathroom (DH/DD), shower room (guests) and a downstairs loo (everyone).

I love my ensuite.

Biologifemini · 12/09/2018 19:02

I feel we have gone backwards by wanting to poop in the bedroom.
Hate en suites

LongPinkBanana · 12/09/2018 19:06

FFS...the most innocuous, friendly threads still attract bolsy answers. What is the matter with people?

"Look, have what YOU like, there's nothing to understand" & "Wasn't there a thread on this a few days ago". Jeez.

Firstly, there are hundreds of thousands of people who use this site...sometimes people are going to want to talk about the same thing Hmm And given that en suite's are everywhere - with delevopers shoe-horning them into the smallest spaces, it's hardly surprising that people who don't like them might mention it from time to time.

It's almost as if people have decided that to be a "true" MNer you have to be as snappy & sarcastic as possible in the hope it makes you sound sardonic & clever, or something. It doesn't. It makes you sound like a fucking dickhead.

OP - I don't like them either. We removed ours and turned it into a large wardrobe. Much more useful.

Firesuit · 12/09/2018 19:07

I’d rather have two full sized bathrooms than an ensuite and a bathroom.

Why do you assume an en-suite will be smaller than any other bathroom? There is nothing in the definition of "en-suite" that implies anything about the size of a bathroom.

I'd rather have a decent sized bedroom than a cramped bedroom with an en suite shoved into it, like so many new homes have

I don't think you understand what an en-suite is. It's a separate room, so by definition it doesn't make any other room smaller. If a new home has a bedroom that's too small, that's a problem in itself, don't blame a nearby bathroom.

In general my question for the complainers is: if you (and any other occupants of your bedroom) had exclusive use of a bathroom, why would it be better to access it from a public hallway than your bedroom? Because this is the only necessary difference between an en-suite and any other bathroom.

legolammb · 12/09/2018 19:11

I'm very surprised by lack of love for en-suites - what's not to like about being able to flit in and out of en-suite and bedroom when you're getting ready for a night out, having space for your own toiletries, somewhere to hide the canesten, and easy access for middle of the night toilet trips? Also more pleasant on cold mornings as there's a shorter walk to the shower. Also as an IBS sufferer I can have more privacy when we have guests

EthelHornsby · 12/09/2018 19:13

Having had 4 teenagers, 3 of them girls, I can vouch for the absolute joy of an ensuite

Alpacanorange · 12/09/2018 19:15

I love the kids one most because they keep out of mine.

5000KallaxHoles · 12/09/2018 19:15

We turned a really really awkward alcove in one of our bedrooms into one (well it's not a full en-suite - it's got a loo and basin in there) - wasn't really anything much else you could do with the space to make it useful, it was just becoming a dumping ground and having an extra loo in the house is bloody handy more than anything else.

It's in the kids' room as they've got the biggest bedroom in the house - but at least it means when DD2 is in there taking 20 minutes to sing through all her favourite songs while having a poo that I don't have to dance around on the landing cross legged waiting. I'd have preferred a downstairs loo, which our house really is missing - but the layout of our house doesn't make that at all easily viable to fit without losing a huge swathe of space we need at the moment.

It didn't, however lose more than about 25 cm of useful bedroom space (bedroom had a stupid as fuck alcove that just was a damp trap if you put furniture in it, was too small to put anything like a wardrobe in it, and just limited how you could lay the room out no end).

5000KallaxHoles · 12/09/2018 19:17

I'd love one in our bedroom too though - ideally one I could ban DH from completely. I think his and her en-suites could be the way of the future... no hairy man-arse on my lovely porcelain, no Manly-Man-Smell For Him shower gel getting in the way of nice smelling toiletries and not having him use every bloody towel in the bathroom every time he has a shower.

Could be the way of the future.

OlennasWimple · 12/09/2018 19:18

I don't think you understand what an en-suite is. It's a separate room, so by definition it doesn't make any other room smaller. If a new home has a bedroom that's too small, that's a problem in itself, don't blame a nearby bathroom

Err, I do understand what an en suite is, actually - better than you do, it would seem, as by definition it is an adjunct to a room, not a separate room Hmm

Are you saying that you have never seen a floor plan where the space allocated for the master bedroom would be a decent size, if it weren't for the fact that one corner has been used for an en suite? Because I've seen plenty, particularly in the standard, non-luxury 3 bed house market.

hammeringinmyhead · 12/09/2018 19:22

Agree they aren't small. We have two identically sized bathrooms, one on the second floor and one on the first. The second floor one has a door into the hallway between 2 bedrooms and the first a door into our bedroom. I can sleep naked and go for a wee in the middle of the night without getting dressed and get fully ready in the mornings without confronting a guest first.

ICantFindAFreeNickName2 · 12/09/2018 19:22

I don't like them because my dp & I get up at different times. If we had an en-suite we would be waking each other up.

HPLikecraft · 12/09/2018 19:26

I love our en suite. It's much bigger than the main bathroom, and has bath and separate shower cubicle. It's away from all the child and teenager mess and smells.
Also, it avoids the need to find a dressing gown for night time wees if you're an "au naturel" sleeper.

Please create an account

To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.

Join Mumsnet Log In

This thread is closed and is no longer accepting replies. Click here to start a new thread.